Walking Man Walking Again
And the walking man walks, he don’t say nothing at all
Many other men stops and talks, but not the walking man
The walking man walks on — James Taylor
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I’ve been tracking my distances walking, by steps and miles, since November, along with a few other fitness milestones, to challenge myself to keep moving and keep active. I didn’t used to have to do this — I used to play 100+ games of softball a year, and just always kept moving, naturally, without needing the additional encouragement.
Since I hit my Sixties, three years ago, I have noticed my body’s increasing desire to rest more, and to be less active. I have gifted it with a good extra hour of sleep each night, thanks to my CPAP machine and how much better I feel when I get that extra hour. But, I’ve found the motivation of setting, and striving to achieve, certain fitness milestones to be good for my overall health. My Apple Watch, which I received for my birthday last November, has been the biggest help with this.
I started out strong, averaging well over 10,000 steps/five miles a day for the first five months of tracking my daily steps. I also quickly increased my daily goals for active calorie burn rate from 800 a day, to 900, then 1,000, and was able to maintain my average well above those levels. I began to swim every night in our swim spa out back, which really helped the calorie burn numbers.
Then, the calorie burn rate dipped a bit when I had to cut the swimming out in May, due to an inner ear infection, but I still maintained my step/mile counts. When I had my oral surgery in June, my walking averages suffered quite a bit, when it took a couple weeks to recover from that, in which time I didn’t do a lot of walking, nor other active exercise. I started getting my numbers back up in July, but it seemed every time I took a couple steps forward, I’d take one backward — it was hard to get some momentum going to get my averages back to where they were, pre-May. But, I did finish strongly at the end of July, and am determined to have a strong month in August. So far, so good, four days in.
Today, I took my first extended walk through the nearby woods, and all around the northeast Vienna neighborhood, a four mile loop I first learned about from my friend Wally, who grew up here. After all the rain we’ve had this past month, the whole area is downright lush with greenery, especially compared to how it usually is this time of summer. There’s usually a lot more brown around, from being burnt by the hot summer sun — it’s actually quite lovely this year. This being my first really good walk in the woods this summer, I thoroughly enjoyed every step, rocking out to some great tunes on my earbuds, and feeling just a little stronger every day.
It feels good to be getting back to my fitness routine, and building up my stamina again. My friend Wally, who is always up for these kinds of walks, is currently walking around somewhere in Europe, on an extended vacation over there. Actually, I think it’s a combination work/vacation thing he’s doing. Wally’s his own boss, and comes up with some amazing jobs he does for customers. He actually earns money when he golfs, as he writes up his experience in his wife’s newspaper, and the courses let him play for free, and even gives him some gear and what-not, occasionally. He’s a smart guy, and a lot of fun to walk with.
But today, it was just me, my tunes, and lovely Mother Nature, seducing me with her charms on a nice, mid-summer day in Northern Virginia — something that doesn’t usually happen very often. We’re more used to ungodly hot and humid mid-summer days, here. Days like today make the price of all that rain well worth the while.
